One Metro Vancouver school — Thomas Haney Secondary in Maple Ridge — is a trailblazer in the personalized learning field. This week, the province released a proposed curriculum redesign intended to modernize the education system for B.C. students.

This week, the province released a proposed curriculum redesign intended to modernize the education system for B.C. students. The plan focuses on more personalized learning and allows for greater flexibility for course and subject material.

One Metro Vancouver school — Thomas Haney secondary in Maple Ridge — is a trailblazer in the personalized learning field.

For 21 years, the school has allowed individual students to focus on their own needs, strengths and aspirations. The school’s self-directed program, which allows students to work independently and at their own pace, is attracting international attention.

Students at Thomas Haney remain on a traditional timetable for Grade 8, but in Grade 9 they are given more independent time. In Grades 10 through 12, students attend traditional classes for just an hour a week per subject.

The rest of the time is charted with an adviser teacher each morning, and includes some traditional class study. That leaves time for a lot of unstructured study working both independently and in groups towards various educational goals.

For example, Maddi Phare is in Grade 10 and a full-time student at Thomas Haney. Every morning, she meets with a teacher adviser to plan her day. Some days, the 15-year-old heads to the rotunda, a large open space in the centre of the school, where she interacts with kids of all ages. She might read a book for an hour and then work on some French practice.

Other days, she might decide to spend extra time in the gym, or join students of all grades in the math hall, where they can work collaboratively or seek one-on-one help from any of the school’s math teachers. When she’s ready, she goes to the testing centre to write a test.

Although Phare was skeptical when she was choosing a high school, her mother encouraged her to try Thomas Haney, and now she says the teachers are like second parents.

“I definitely could not imagine going to another school. I love being here,” Phare said, adding that the school structure makes it possible to create relationships with teachers she has never had for an actual class.

Josh Nicholas, also 15 and in Grade 10, says his mother still gets questioned by her friends who think the kids “must skip all the time” because they are not held to a rigid schedule. But Nicholas says students don’t skip class because they know they eventually have to get their work done.

“I am so happy that I chose to be here. It’s the perfect way of learning for me,” Nicholas said, adding that because he can proceed at his own pace. By focusing on his own strengths, he was able to finish Grade 8 math in two months and go on to complete Grade 9 math. He did the same thing with Grade 9 and 10 French last year.

“I didn’t mean to. I just liked going to the French hall, and I got more work done than I planned,” he said.

Kathryn Ferguson, who is head of the English department at Thomas Haney and also graduated from the school in 1994, said the school is much more accepted now than it was at the beginning. “People are no longer looking at us like a bunch of weirdos,” Ferguson said, adding that students are given a lot of choice and flexibility in their assignments.

“You’re not going to get out of writing an essay, but you might be able to write the essay about something you’re really interested in from your social justice class,” she said.

Ferguson said it does get hectic around report card time, when students rush to get all of their assignments done. “But I’ve taught in traditional schools and it’s similar there as well. I don’t feel it’s more exaggerated here,” Ferguson said. “I think we’ve found the perfect balance between flexibility and scheduled know how.”

The emphasis on flexibility pushes the teachers at Thomas Haney to stay sharp as well.

Jeff Radom, head of the math department, said teaching in the math hall means he has to be ready to answer questions on material ranging from Grade 8 to Grade 12. “You’ve definitely got to be on the ball with your content,” he said, adding that he finds the school’s model very effective.

For students, one of the greatest challenges is time management. Student Caroline Lee is 17 and in Grade 12. She admits she struggled a bit to meet the deadlines in Grade 10.

“It was really difficult for me. That’s when you start having more freedom. I procrastinated a bit in the beginning,” Lee said. But now that she is on the verge of graduation, she says the time management skills she learned will serve her well.

“I think the learning environment is going to help me get by in life,” Lee said.

Gino Bondi, the Vancouver school board’s district principal of specialty programs, agrees the study skills will mean the most to students in the future.

“Regardless of the content, which will always been in a state of flux, the skills that they will acquire — in technology, organization, or time management — will have a significance beyond the immediacy of a specific course,” Bondi said, adding that this type of personalized learning will expand as B.C. adopts more of its new education plan, designed to modernize the education system and focus on the needs, strengths and aspirations of each student.

Vancouver School District superintendent Steve Cardwell has visited Thomas Haney, and encourages other Vancouver educators to do the same to see what they can apply in their own schools.

“I believe it is an innovative approach to teaching and learning,” Cardwell said. “I believe that by letting students proceed at their own pace with the support available when they need it enables students to be successful in different ways.

“(But) it’s not for every child. Some students need the structure of a more traditional timetable.”

Thomas Haney principal Sean Nosek said A.L. Fortune Secondary School in Enderby has decided to follow the self-directed model for this school year. As well, groups from Iceland, New Zealand and Australia have visited his school, which is a member of the Canadian Coalition for Self Directed Learning, a consortium of like-minded schools.

“It has become a showcase school,” Nosek said. While most neighbouring schools have declining enrolment, Thomas Haney is full, and not every student that wanted to attend this year got in.

The graduation rate last year at the school was 93 per cent, better than the Maple Ridge-Pitt Meadows district rate of 83.5 and the provincial rate of 81.8 per cent.

He said the skills students acquire in time management, negotiation and advocating for themselves serve them well in post-secondary schools. “I think it is those intangibles where our light shines the brightest.”

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